Larkin Goldsmith Mead

Larkin Goldsmith Mead (January 3 1835 - 1910) was an American sculptor.

He was born at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and was a pupil (1853-1855) of Henry Kirk Brown. During the early part of the American Civil War he was at the front for six months, with the army of the Potomac, as an artist for "Harper's Weekly"; and in 1862-1865 he was in Italy, being for part of the time attached to the United States consulate at Venice, while William D. Howells, his brother-in-law, was consul. He returned to America in 1865, but subsequently went back to Italy and lived at Florence.

His first important work was a statue titled "Agriculture," designed to top the dome of the Vermont State House at Montpelier, Vermont. This work proved so successful that he was soon after commissioned to sculpt a statue of Ethan Allen for the portico of the Vermont State House. Mead's work can be seen as neoclassical. His principal works are: the monument to President Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; Ethan Allen (1876), National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol, Washington; an heroic marble statue, "The Father of Waters," New Orleans; and "Triumph of Ceres", made for the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, and a large bust of Lincoln in the Hall of Inscriptions at the Vermont State House.

His brother William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928) was a well-known architect.

References

*1911

External links

* [http://bailey.uvm.edu/specialcollections/mead.html] State House Statues by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr.
* [http://www.nps.gov/abli/hrs/hrs2b.htm] National Park Service Lincoln birthplace site
* [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/art/lmead.htm Larkin Mead Statue at Lincoln Tomb ] at showcase.netins.net Standing Lincoln by Mead at Lincoln gravesite